


This Is All I'm Asking For

by chewysugar



Series: 2019 Advent Calendar [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar Drabble, Brooding, Christmas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Holidays, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Angel/Buffy Summers, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21633238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Leave it to Harmony Kendall to be the one to snap everyone's favorite brood-machine out of unnecessary holiday blues.
Series: 2019 Advent Calendar [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559248
Kudos: 1





	This Is All I'm Asking For

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 of my 2019 Advent Calendar! This is a convoluted game I'm playing where I pick a fandom and prompt via online generator and pair it with a randomly selected song from my Christmas playlist, then unleash it upon the unsuspecting public! 
> 
> Today's was "Angel" and "A minor character helps a major protagonist solve an emotional problem." The song I got was "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Ingrid Michaelson--which, since it is a somber cover of the Mariah classic, was a perfect fit.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.” His voice, coarse as his sordid history, rasps below the holiday playlist, barely audible to any who aren’t trained for the rough timber. “An angel watches people celebrate Christmas for a month and some change, and feels like Satan himself.” He shakes his head, downs his rooibos, and stares out the window. 

Harmony tilts her head to the side. Brooding and handsome as all get out, it’s amazing that Angel can be so thick. Oh, but isn’t that why the girls all fell for him? The kicked puppy dog eyes and the tragic set of his brows had them all rushing to _www.angel-is-broken.com/swoon._ Well...the girls, and Spike, but Harmony made a pinky promise not to divulge that she wormed those intimate details out of her coworker and former lover. 

Any other besotted Bobby Soxer would have been trying to soothe the savage beast. But not her. She ain’t Buffy Summers, and then the Good Lord above for that. 

Tossing her head so that the dangling bauble of her fluffy pink Santa hat tosses over her shoulder, she fixes Angel with a penetrating glare. “I don’t see what’s so entertaining about that.” She jerks her head at the window. “December in Southern California is totally gross.”

Angel’s brows contract. He’s irritated. Harmony’s seen that look on many a face. But she didn’t spend four years of high school under the thumb of Cordelia Chase for nothing. People only get annoyed when they’re being confronted with something they don’t like. And right now, Angel doesn’t like that Harmony Kendall of all people is about to school him. 

“Nobody’s saying you have to do anything about it, you big dumb-dumb.” 

“Harmony...”

“Hey, I’m the one talking right now.” She eyes the waitress who has been eyeing Angel all night with such ferocity that the girl backs off before asking if they’d like a refill. “You don’t wanna celebrate the holly-jollies, then fine by me. Don’t go hawking a loogie in everyone else’s egg nog.”

The lines of a laugh crease his lips for a moment. “I haven’t heard that one before.” 

“And I’ll bet you’ve never heard this either.” Needing reinforcements, Harmony sucks down the remains of her latte—one benefit of being a child of the night: she can have coffee any damn time she wants without succumbing to insomnia. 

“You can’t have had all bad ones. You’ve been alive that long, there’s bound to be a warm and fuzzy Christmas memory somewhere in that big, brooding brain of yours.” 

Angel seems to consider this. “Well...yes. There was Buffy—

“Color me shocked with a box of holy crap crayons.” Harmony rolls her eyes. Of course it was Buffy, although why in the world...but then maybe there is something to people being made for each other after all. “Hang onto that one then. Cover it in bubble wrap. Just stop hurting yourself over all the yuckier bits. It’s done. It’s the past.” 

A spasm of anger now.

“Oh don’t even try that with me, Mister Grinch. I’m not afraid of you or anything else these days...except the IRS, but I’m that’s because I’m not insane.” 

Angel sighs. “Why does it matter to you so much?”

“Because I want you to be happy.” 

He looks at her as if she just confessed to having penned The Zodiac cipher. “Why?” 

Oh my god, but he really is thicker than two bricks, as Spike would say. Relying on her yoga training to keep calm, Harmony turns her attention to her breathing: inhale...exhale...inhale...

“Everyone should be.” She’s surprised by her own tone—sincere and slightly sadder than she wants to be at present. “You’re trying, big guy. Look at all the things you’ve done. Look at what you’re trying to do.” Staring at the gaudy faux garland nailed around the window sill at Angel’s back, Harmony sighs. “This time of the year...people try to be better, right? Even Cordy made an effort to be less self-involved and bitch-tastic.” Not that she ever achieved it with any measurable amount of grace. 

Feeling her exit cue coming, Harmony slips a ten on the table. It’s more than the tip, but hey—it is Christmas, after all. “I guess what I’m trying to say is...life is hard enough. Especially an everlasting life like yours. It’s enough for me that there’s this one time a year when we try to make things easier on each other.” Eyeing the bill like it had just insulted her, she adds, “And yeah maybe we’ve turned it into a money making thing too much, but...that’s better than nothing.” She sighs. “Kindness is free, Angel. And you should be kinder to yourself if you’re not going to let other people do it during the course of twenty-five days.” 

Silence spirals like the calm before a blizzard. When the trite sounds of an old Celine Dion contemporary pop Christmas tune becomes too much for even Harmony’s tastes, she stands. Angel is staring at the table, hundreds of years of memories dancing across his eyes in a procession. There’s no chance Harmony can break through that ice, if after this little heart-to-heart he’s still sinking in his own ocean. 

She’s at the door when he turns around in his seat. 

“Harmony?” 

Looking back, it’s to find a strange expression of renewal on Angel’s usually carved face. It almost makes her smile. 

“Yeah?”

A pause...then: “Thank you.” 

Well would you look at that. A bonafide holiday miracle and it’s only the First of December. 

“Merry Christmas, Angel.” With that, Harmony steps into the balmy Los Angeles night, wishing it would snow. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment, kudo, bookmark, etc if you fancy. 
> 
> Stay tuned for whatever my mentally unwell brain cooks up for tomorrow!


End file.
